


Magebane

by thepalehorsevictoria



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alcohol, Character Death, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-17
Updated: 2018-10-08
Packaged: 2019-05-28 16:43:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 19,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15053489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepalehorsevictoria/pseuds/thepalehorsevictoria
Summary: The wail of desperation rips through her as she watches her own blood stream onto the ground.'What if…?'She pulls the stopper out of the vial’s neck and takes it like a shot of rotgut. There is a flash of bitter, and then a cold spice washes over her mouth and throat.  It sings, gallops in her veins, and it propels her hand up and outward.She sees blue.And then a bright light.And then nothing.





	1. Prologue

The gods were told of this day.

The old man has made sure of it.

As dawn’s first light begins to wash the hold in gold, he holds the reins to two horses, packed for travel. 

Three people approach—a young man, flanked by two _skolder maer,_ the younger one with a baby girl wrapped in a fur sling. The old man’s grip on the reins tightens and he fidgets as she comes closer, and does not meet her eyes.

The young man steps ahead and helps the younger woman up onto one of the horses, and then mounts the other.

The young woman takes one last look at the other woman. No words are said, and only the babe’s cries echo up the cliff passage walls as they leave.

Our story begins nineteen years later as the world threatens to end.


	2. The Hissing Wastes

Alexander Trevelyan is annoyed, but does not let it show as he approaches the camp. Nothing in the scouts’ forward reports said anything about sandstorms that nearly blind the advance party. Desert, yes, and that meant sand and heat and sun, but not winds in the night that threaten to _peel the skin off his face_.

Fortunately Madame de Fer, who never stopped complaining while they were waist-deep in swamp in the Mire and would be the death of him here, is absent.

He eases his tired mount just paces away from the scouts’ camp, deciding that there is no point in being upset at this detail. He is just happy that he’s arrived and can stop riding blind, even if for just a little while. When he dismounts, Lace Harding, his favorite, walks up to him with a waterskin, and he smiles gratefully, taking a deep drink as she retrieves a scroll form the camp desk, which she hands to him along with a piece of warm frybread, which he’s also grateful for after days of jerky and nuts. After another drink, he tears into the bread as Dorian Pavus, Iron Bull and Varric Tethras finish their dismount behind him, and there is a chorus of soft moans and grunts of relief.

Alex sighs with content. “Ah, Harding. Any luck charting the area?” He hopes so—there looks to be very little to chart from this viewpoint. There is an awning in the camp, fortunately, and it gives his gray eyes a chance to stop squinting, and his face sings with relief.

She shakes her head. “I did what I could, your Worship,” she waves her arms to emphasize her point, “This space has nothing but … space. If there’s anything of value here I say let Corypheus _have_ it.”

Still standing (he had been on horseback for some time), Alex tilts his head and begins smiling widely at her. “Oh, the desert is _immeasurably_ more precious with you in it, Scout Harding.” The smile goes all the way to his gray eyes, now pale compared to his freshly tanned skin.

That earns him a good chuckle. “When did you come up with that one?”

He shrugs, but looks behind him to Varric. “I had some time along the way.” It was a very long ride. He had a lot of time for wordplay and puns.

Harding unfurls the scroll in her hand, showing a map. “I did find something for you: old dwarven ruins, on the surface. Impossible, but there you go. The Red Templars are digging them out, with Venatori supervision.” She grimaces as she pores over the map again, then hands it to him. In parts, it’s about as detailed as the ones from the Fallow Mire. It’s not Harding’s fault, Alex knows, there’s only so many places she can be, and now that the initial survey is done, she would be in the first group out, off to chart another area at Leliana’s direction.

She pointed at a more detailed spot on the map. “I just saw Red Templars heading northwest of here. They might be a good start? I found this part of the map on a dead one, maybe it shows where they’re headed. Good luck.” She salutes him, and he returns the gesture.

Alex begins studying the map a bit as Iron Bull, Varric and Dorian gather near him. Two hours later, after the horses are watered and they could stretch their legs a bit, Alex finds the cleanest rag and ties it around his nose and mouth, and they start an easy pace northwest in the cover of night towards the next camp.

* * *

The next day, work begins against the Venatori.

Dorian’s mouth twitches a bit as he counts the numbers again through the spyglass. There are just five in the camp some hundred feet away, but there’s an uneasy feeling.Something or someone was coming, he can feel it, but there isn’t any other movement for miles in this _fasta vass_ desert.

“Still the five of them?” Alex is turning his new silverite dagger in his left hand, the other shielding his face from the wind and sand.

“Yes, but, is it just me, or do you feel _something_?” He hands the spyglass back to Alex.

Alex frowns. “Can’t say as I do. Varric?”

The dwarf was loading bolts into his crossbow. “Just a lot of wind and sand. We can make it work in our favor.”

“I agree,” Alex sheaths his dagger. “So. I’ll sneak in to get the mage. Varric, you take a high shot and rain down cover so Bull can swoop in to take the two warriors, and that way Dorian can freeze the rogues unharmed.  A few trap glyphs should do it so they can’t hide.”

The party agreed, and Alex crouches, beginning his silent approach from a considerable distance.Iron Bull already has his axe in his hands, standing next to Dorian for now. They know this routine well.

And then the galloping begins. Alex’s shoulders hunch in reflex, and he stops.Varric comes up behind him.

From behind a nearby cliff, a rider rapidly approaches the camp, _fast_ , pushing up giant clouds of dust under rapid hooves, and against the desert wind he’s impossible to make out except for the horned Venatori helmet.

Varric curses. “Shit! A scout?”

The rider is yelling something, and both rogues ready their weapons in case the shouts were that they were discovered. But all that could be heard over the clanging of metal and neighing was ‘ _kevesh,_ ’ which Dorian had told him in the Hinterlands was akin to ‘help.’

The Venatori camp has weapons drawn, but do not attack. _Messenger_ , Alex thinks, as the rider dismounts and approaches. The warriors walk to him first, lowering their weapons a bit, and Alex beckons Varric forward with him.

There are shouts that stop them in their tracks. In the blink of an eye the rider draws hidden blades from his vambraces and stabs the warriors between their armor and helmets, and before the Inquisition party can move forward, a knife is thrown straight in between the spellcaster’s eyes. Taken by surprise, one of the Venatori rogues raises his daggers in defense against the rider who … is suddenly gone.

Alex squints against the sand in the wind, also looking for the rider, trying his best to track movements and keep an eye on the action. Dorian, hidden behind Iron Bull and Varric, also advances, beginning to hum a spell in case he needs the corpses.

Confused by the quick disappearance of the assailant, the two surviving Venatori soldiers’ chests heave as they panic. Seconds pass, and when there is no further movement, they lower their blades and nervously approach the bodies of their slain compatriots. Alex is now fifty paces away, coming up behind them, ready to strike, with Varric some paces behind him, priming Bianca.

Both rogues startle at the sight of one of the bodies _moving_ , two arms shooting out to stab the Venatori hunters in the gut. The rider, covered in gore and blood, leaps up from his hiding place underneath the dead mage and swings and decapitates both of them in one motion. No motion is wasted, the cuts are fast and the only sound is the gurgle of blood.

Dorian stops his spell, hearing Iron Bull take in a quick breath.

Alex is still crouched, hiding, unsure what the rider would do next. Varric takes his finger off Bianca’s trigger, but keeps an eye on the movement.

The rider does not notice them, squats down to retrieve his weapons, and starts to loot the bodies, picking up the mage’s staff and pocketing a handful of something from one of the warriors. When he straightens up to glance around Alex holds his breath. Varric raises up Bianca a little higher, aiming for the rider’s head, and follows him with his aim as he approaches a nearby camp desk and picks up every piece of parchment, which he later stuffs into a pack on his horse.

Then, with as much serenity as a farmhand chopping wood, the rider drives the mage’s staff into the sand, and picks up one of the decapitated heads to ram onto it. _A warning in any language_ , Alex understands. _Maybe he sees us after all, and this is for us_.

A quick nod, as if he was satisfied with his work, and the rider mounts his horse and rides off in the direction he came from, as quickly as he rode in.  After he is some distance away, Alex stands up, still absorbing what he just saw.

“So, not Venatori, then?” Varric breaks the silence.

“That was amazing!” Bull laughs. “So efficient and brutal and wow.”

Dorian rolls his eyes at the Qunari, _and fasta vass the sand makes it hurt more_ , and walks towards Alex. “Who was that?” he asks somewhat rhetorically. “Did you see any sigil or arms or colors?”

Alex shakes his head, partly in response and partly to settle everything he just saw. “I want to know why he took the papers, though. We need those if we’re going to get anything out of this godsforsaken desert. Come, let’s get out of this blasted wind and find the next camp.”

* * *

Later that day, the Inquisitor grunts louder than usual as they approach the third camp of the day. After weeks of riding and hours of desert where the most exciting event is a nest of varghests, he is honestly itching for a fight, and the second camp they found earlier was already run through, and like the first one, the rider had mounted a Venatori head on a staff as his signature. Flies already buzzed around it, and the flesh was beginning to cook, and Varric makes an effort not to vomit.

This camp seemed no different. Alex dismounts first, which earns a small grumble from Bull (“Told you to stay back, boss, you’re less expendable”), and went to look at the stab wounds on the corpses. There were few, but all were in the exact place they needed to be to kill. And once again, all papers that would be on the camp desk were missing.

“Hey, Charming,” Varric’s voice broke the short silence. “Over here.”

The party gathers around what appeared to be the body of a Red Templar. Specifically, a behemoth. Red crystals, flesh, blood, and scraps of metal from an old Templar uniform are almost indistinguishable from each other. There are, however, two longswords firmly lodged into its head and chest. Fragments of red lyrium crunch under Alex’s boot as he crouches down for a better look.

And there is a trail of blood leading away.

“Well,” Dorian chirps. “He bleeds.”

Alex follows the trail with his eyes. The blood is drying quickly in the desert sun but it’s still red enough to not have been very long ago. The trail doesn’t go very far, but it was something. “Let’s see if we can catch up. Ride fast.”

The trail of blood finishes quickly, but fortunately the landscape makes it easy for the Inquisition to figure out the rider’s path for the next few miles.  Alex presses his horse faster, no longer afraid of the noise giving away his position. He wants to see the rider up close, get the Venatori papers, maybe kill him. Soon Alex gains a considerable distance from the rest of the party, and he can hear Iron Bull whistle at him to slow down. He rides on.

Thanks to his drive, Alex arrives at the fourth camp with the rider still there, about to mount another head on a spike. _It’s the little things that trip people up sometimes, isn’t it,_ Alex thinks to himself, smiling a little, dismounting. The rider turns towards the camp desk, and Alex was about to yell in frustration, and then he saw the rider limp, holding his side.

In his peripheral vision, he can see the rest of the advance party arrive and dismount. “Right, we take him alive, see to his wounds. I want to know where the other papers are, what he knows.”  

Blood is still dripping from where the rider is holding his side, and he tries to look down at it to assess the damage, but the heavy Venatori helmet is too restrictive. His shoulders rise and fall as if sighing heavily, and he moves his hand from his wound to hold down a piece at his neck as the other hand removes his helmet. A riot of red hair tumbles down, as did a length of green fabric that probably was serving as a gorget. Now that he can take a better look at the wound, he next works at the buckles of his leather coat, and shrugs it off, piling it into the camp desk on top of the papers.

There’s very few rocks to use to sneak up, and the sun is beating down on all of them, and Alex starts a slow advance. He glances at the staff in the sand and the head skewered on top of it and swallows, a little nervous. Yes, he’s fought dragons and survived an archdeacon, but the sun is in his eyes and the rider has an advantage, even when injured. He has single-handedly destroyed at least four Venatori camps and a Red Templar, and that was just what he had seen. There could have been hundreds before them. Alex walks slow, holding his hands out, even if he knows the rider knows better than to trust him.

“ _A—avanna_?” he tries in Tevene.

“You’re with the Inquisition.”

Alex blinks. The voice is certainly female, and remarkably calm. Low, but melodic, like velvet, and an involuntary shiver ran up his spine.

“How—”

“It wasn’t hard. Your camps and scouts all have a great big sigil on them. And word’s gotten around in Thedas about it. Could say you’re a very badly kept secret, ‘specially in the desert.” After a pause, she continues. “You can keep walking.”

He continued his earlier slow pace towards her.  “My name is Alex Trevelyan.”

The rider had her back to him, and turns around after he speaks. The green fabric is a thin veil wrapped around her head, which he was not expecting, but thin enough that he can make out her eyes, mouth and the shape of her jaw. She looks at him from head to toe, and apparently does not think of him as a threat as she turns her attention back to the bleeding.

“I have something for that, if you like?”

“Yes, that would be helpful.”

Alex makes a slow, exaggerated gesture of reaching into a pocket and produces two differently-colored potions, and hands them to her. She reads the labels and opens the red one first to drink, then the yellow one to pour onto the wound, with a sharp hiss of breath.

“Thank you. That big Templar was a bit of work.” The party has slowly reached the edge of the camp. The rider turns to face them all, still holding bits of bloody cloth to her side as the potion works. Her eyes widen a little at the staff on Dorian’s back, and she flinches and grimaces, but then looks back down to the bloody cloth on her wound. “Are you with him?”

Dorian nods, watching. Iron Bull straightens his shoulders a little, and the woman’s eyes follow the movement. If she is at all surprised or intimidated, she doesn’t show it. Instead, she checks the wound one more time, and satisfied that it has stopped bleeding, she tears at the rest of her bloodied and shredded shirt, leaving her in her breastband.

Iron Bull tries very hard not to suck in a breath or whistle. _Redheads_.

She shrugs her coat back on and refastens it, holding her gaze at the Inquisitor. “I thank you for your potions. I am Agni An Bhazka Dubois. I see we have hunting Venatori in common, and so we should talk. Come, let’s get out of the sun, I’ll lead the way.”


	3. The Hissing Wastes

Agni’s green veil whips around in the desert wind as she leads them south around cliffs and mountains and into a gorge. It’s considerably cooler here with shade and they can hear water trickling nearby, which the horses flock to as soon as they’re undressed. Agni unwraps her face and takes a long drink of water from a bucket, splashing some on her face to wash off any sand, and Alex does the same, seeing that it’s safe to drink.

“Some of your birds take shelter from a sun in a tree right where we came in, if you need them. This is the only valley in the west side of the desert, it won’t take your scouts very long to find it if need.”

The camp is small but lush, with a few piles of cushions around shipping crates bearing Orlesian seals on top of old Antivan rugs. This has been home for a good while. While Dorian finds himself scanning book titles in one of the crates, Iron Bull is distracted by Agni shrugging out of her coat, revealing golden tan skin and lean muscle that comes from desert living. She catches his gaze and pauses before pulling on an old chemise that’s two sizes too big over her head, and Bull smirks in appreciation. She raises an eyebrow in response, but says nothing.

Varric finds a particularly comfortable cushion, sighing in relief. Agni kicks off her boots and walks across the carpets barefoot to a low campfire, lifting a cast iron pot off of its hooks. The smell of rabbit stew fills the air as she lifts the lid, and she peers into it to see if she has enough.

“I was not expecting company, but I should have enough with some flatbread,” and she reaches for a basket of the stuff, then she smiles at something funny in her head. “Though I won’t take offense if you’re wary of poison from someone you just met. If you’ve got a map, I’ll update it with some of the heartier game and which bushes they hide under and feast on.”

Behind Alex’s chosen cushion comes a hearty bark that surprises them, and a thin, old mabari hound trots in, happily wagging a nubbed tail. Agni pours a small bit of the liquid from the stew into a bowl for it, and scratches an ear. “Sell anything today, Betyar?” she asks as she ladles out stew in bowls and hands them out. As he takes a bowl from her, Alex can see her up close now, and there’s a smattering of freckles and bright blue eyes that make him feel at ease somehow.

As Agni hands Dorian his bowl, however, his skin races with goosebumps finds himself fighting a small shiver, and they both notice it. Agni blinks and turns back to sit by the fire with her meal, and the mage meets the Inquisitor’s eyes briefly, but nothing is said.

Otherwise, between the scraping of spoons in bowls and the gentle gurgle of moving water nearby, there is nothing, like the world isn’t being hurtled towards destruction, and it’s almost peaceful. At some point, though, Alex feels like he needs to speak.

“You have a very odd collection of both Orlesian romance novels, and ... Ferelden war histories.”  

Agni smiles a little. “My father knew what would sell. What we read also doubled as wares as we traveled around.” She tears into the stew, sopping up soup with bread. “Right. So I did a little trading about two months ago in the Western Approach. Apparently you had left shortly beforehand. There I heard that the Inquisition had interest in Venatori movement and messages there as well. They’ve been increasing their foothold here after you drove a large amount of their forces out east.”

“What do you know of them?” Alex asks.

After some mouthfuls, she sits her bowl down—Betyar watches the movement but does not go for it—and starts focusing completely on the conversation, gesturing in directions. “These small camps always, always have at least four, one of them will be a mage. Now, just because you don’t see a Red Templar already with them, there may be a chance that they will _fucking grow one_. It’s terrifying, which is why you always go for the mages as soon as possible. Learned that the hard way.

“They have two significantly large operations to the very north and northeast of here. I’m a little short on large parchment, but if you have some I’ll draw you a map. I’m able to take out scouts or messengers, but no more than half a dozen at once.” She looks to Iron Bull, who is wiping down the inside of his bowl with the last bit of bread. “The Red ones are new, just a few weeks. All of them bigger than you are, some twice as. Today was the first time I’ve succeeded in killing one.”

“What do you think they’re doing in those bigger camps?” Alex hopes for mention of the parchments she stole, and he is not disappointed. Agni hops up and retrieved papers out of her saddlebag.

“My Tevene isn’t as good as my Orlesian, but you might be able to read them, magister,” she says as she walks over and hands them to him without a trace of disdain in her voice. But Alex notes that Agni had deliberately chosen to sit as far away from him as possible. _Maybe she distrusts Tevinter?_

Dorian lights a small fireball in his hand and scans the pages, reading aloud things of interest, like the enemy’s recorded sightings and observations of the Inquisition’s forces, and journals of ruin discovery. They were after the fabled treasure of Fairel’s tomb.

Varric looks up from a good ear scratch for Betyar. “As in _Paragon_ Fairel?But why? He ... I mean, his family killed each other arguing over the thaig after he died, but that’s ... it.”

Iron Bull reaches into his pack and brought out a bottle. “Dwarven ruins usually mean treasure to someone. You either think you’ll find some lyrium, some weapon with lyrium, or—”

“Something to sell,” Agni finishes for him, “My father was a merchant, for a while I’d bring over whatever I found while riding and sold it if I could, it kept us fed.”

Dorian keeps reading. “Seems there’s a large dragon by one of the tombs.”

Iron Bull stops mid-drink. “ _Dragon?_ Oh, boss, can we?”

Alex sighs in mock annoyance. “ _After_ we wipe out the camps, maybe. Agni, would you be willing to help us? At the least, we could use your knowledge of the area, but frankly we could also use your sword hand. Ah … hands.”

Agni watches Iron Bull’s bottle with mild interest.  “What’s in there?”

“Oh, _this_?  Qunari rotgut. You... wouldn’t want some?” _A hot badass redhead that drinks. Fuck yes._

She tilts her head with a graceful movement, takes the bottle, and takes a swig. Her face contorts six ways all at once, and she sputters, and Iron Bull can’t help the chuckle. “Oh, _Lady_ , that is vile.”

Alex blinks. _Lady_. There was an Avvar in the Mire that said that. Is she ... _Avvar_? 

Agni shakes off the taste in her mouth, chases it with water, which somehow makes it worse. After she regains her composure, she coughs out: “Yes, I’ll help. There’s a fifteen-strong camp not far from here that we can start at tonight.”

Alex smiles to himself and starts mentally writing his away report in his head. She would be an excellent addition to the scouting ranks.

* * *

Five days later, even Iron Bull wants to go home. His bottle is empty after sharing it with Agni, and his greataxe is in dire need of Harrit’s forge and hammer. Dorian looks ridiculous in the scarf he ties around his face to keep the sand out, and Varric stole a helmet for the same protection. Alex sometimes held her updated maps in front of him to shield himself, and it’s not always effective, but he’s not terribly fond of his current helm with the webbed design and front slit.

At least he got to kill another dragon. And the Inquisitor would never admit it, but he definitely enjoyed the chance to let out some stress against the Sandy Howler. He was in such a good mood after that he offered the dagger found in the treasure from Fairel’s tomb to Agni, the blade crackling with lightning. Her eyes glittered like diamonds in the rune-light.

The moment they touch down at Agni’s camp, Varric dismounts, pulls off the helmet (with some difficulty) and sits down at the first crate in sight to write some things down while they’re still fresh in his head. He’s had to take moments out the past five days after the three camps and six tombs that Agni brought them to, and he did not want to forget the way the Inquisitor leapt onto the dragon’s head and drove a dagger straight through the base of its skull, or how the new huntress in their party managed to put two arrows through a mage at fifty paces _while galloping on fucking horseback._

Sebastian would have been proud. Sera would be been in love.

Dorian is a little shaken, and keeps his distance as he tries to process what he felt earlier when they raided the last Venatori foothold. He was, as usual, far back to keep out of harm’s way as he casted, but when Agni aimed at an enemy mage, he felt something pull hard at his chest. _She can’t be a Templar?_ They did not exist in Tevinter—if they did, they were deeply loathed—and he had never encountered one until he came south. _Aren’t they completely a Chantry product?_ He needed to speak to, ugh, Vivienne. Maybe the Commander, or the Seeker. But he would wait until they returned to Skyhold. _Speaking of which,_ Dorian watches Alex whisper something to Iron Bull, get a short reply, and after he does the same to Varric, the Inquisitor walks over, and this time he sits down on a cushion next to him. He knoes what was coming.

“You want her for the cause.”

Alex doesn’t hesitate. “Yes.” But then he takes a breath. “There’s something between the two of you, though, and so I’m … cautious.”

Dorian shakes his head. “I don’t know what it is. But it’s worth finding out,” he realizes out loud. After Adamant, he realized there were so many fantastical things in the world still beyond his understanding— _Maker I might even have to talk to Solas_.

Alex looks in her direction. Iron Bull was saying something and it made her laugh. She is much more at ease now that the camps were taken out. The desert was quiet before they came, she said, and when they raided her father’s wagon it had taken days for her to find what remained of him, and she had sworn her vengeance. Her head is held high now that her shoulders are lifted of the burden.

“I’ll speak to Cullen at Skyhold. I’ve already begun a report, but after today, there’ll be more to discuss.” He drains his waterskin. “But if you’re even remotely against it, Dorian, I won’t ask.”

“What did the others say?”

“You know Bull, he’s got a thing for redheads. But he’s also a big fan of her skills. Varric started writing about her today, and is calling her Red.” A pause. “Still up to you.  Say the word and I won’t.”

Dorian sighs.  It isn’t so bad as long as he isn’t in her line of sight in combat. And she knows a great deal of the Venatori, that’s handy.“She would be very useful. You should.”

Alex smiles serenely and pats him on the back. “Thank you. I’ll do it now.”

_Maker, I hope I haven’t agreed to my own demise._

* * *

Agni is sprawled out on an old rug with Betyar’s head on her thigh, gazing at an Orlesian portrait frame on a small crate nearby. Alex intentionally shuffles his feet to announce his presence, and she lifts her head to turn and see him. She makes no movement to hide the cameos, and only lays her head down again.

“Don’t suppose you have a bottle of anything, do you?” she asks. He still can’t believe she liked what Iron Bull brought with him.

“Ah, sadly, no. But there will probably be some barley wine or rum as we pass some places on the way home.”

“So you’re done here,” she sighs.

“Short of chasing down that strange lone chanter, I don’t see what’s next, no.” He squints a little to see the portraits better, and when he can’t, he decides to sit down closer to her. “Who are those?” The portraits are ink and parchment, and look new.

“Marcel Dubois, _mon père_ , and my mother, Bhazka An Jayne O Stone-Bear.”

“Orlesian and … Avvar?”

“They met in the Basin while my father was part of a merchant caravan.” A corner of her mother’s likeness was torn and Agni runs her thumb over it. “I haven’t been able to get oil paints or silk, so when the parchment wears out I draw them again. Keeps my memory fresh, I suppose.” Agni arches her back to look up at Alex. “You’ve got something on your mind.”

Alex reaches back to rub at the base of his neck, a gesture he only started after he met the commander of his forces. “So, what’s next for _you_ , then, now that you got your desert back?”

She scoffs. “ _My_ desert. It’s just me and the dog now, I suppose. My father’s death has been avenged.”

“And your mother?”

“She went back to the Sky years ago. Wasting sickness on the way out of Emprise du Lion. It was just me and Père for a while.” Betyar huffs. “And you, old man.”

Alex swallows. “Well. I don’t know how to lead up to this, so I’ll say it simply. I’d like you to join the Inquisition.”

Agni doesn’t blink, doesn’t say a word. Betyar huffs again, moves his head to snuggle closer, he farts just loud enough for both to hear, and Agni crinkles her nose.

He begins to ramble. “You have exceptional mapping skills, you’re an excellent huntress, and what you’ve been able to tell us in the short time here proves you’re very resourceful. There’s this doom looming over the world and the Inquisition needs help wherever we can find it.”

Agni scratches the dog’s ear. “This Elder One is the one these Venatori have been working for?”

“Yes.”

“And you think you can kill him?”

“Or die trying.” Alex glances briefly at his left hand. It twinges as if it knows he’s talking about it.

“Okay, I’m in.”

“That...was not what I expected.” _That was too easy._

“Boss,” she uses Iron Bull’s word, “they killed my father , and the red _grew out of him_.” She shudders. “I had to burn him to keep the skies from being poisoned by it.” She sat up and turned to face him. “I can either keep swatting these ... gadflies or go after the thing that drives them, and if that’s what you’re after, that’s where I’ll go.” Betyar huffs again, as if to remind her that he was there. “You’ll come too, Betyar. Time we closed up the shop, anyway.”

She spends the next day picking through the crates for her favorite books, and asks Varric about Skyhold.

“It’s a whole motley of characters, Red. Wait ’til you meet them.”

“If they’re anything like you and Bull, this will be interesting. _Much_ more exciting than the desert,” she smiles.

_Ancestors. That smile will be the death of someone._


	4. Skyhold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Irresponsible consumption of alcohol ahead.

For Alex, there are few things as pleasant as coming back to Skyhold. The air smells familiar, like a well-loved coat, and after weeks of travel back from the Hissing Wastes, the Exalted Plains _and_ the Emprise du Lion, he’s ready to be home for a few days.

He needs to see Cassandra. He has a book of Starkhaven poetry in his saddlebag, raided from Agni’s crates, and between its pages is a bright red flower he found growing outside the gorge the day they left.

Alex smiles to himself as he hears Dorian and Varric sigh with relief as they pass through the gatehouse.

Dorian makes a noise. “Never thought I’d be so happy to be back in this cold southern weather. _Blasted_ wind. I’ve still got sand in awful places and I blame you for all of it.” He huffs. “I’ll be in the baths for hours getting it all out. That’s the last time you get me out there.”

Bull opens his mouth to say something, but Agni’s laughter interrupts. The laughter is short-lived as her mouth gapes open at the inside.

The Inquisition’s spymaster and diplomat stand at the base of the stairs leading up to the keep, patiently waiting.  Alex smiles at the stable hand that offers him a waterskin and takes his horse away, and motions for Agni to follow him up.

“Agni, may I introduce you to some of our advisors? Josephine Montiliyet of Antiva, our ambassador, and Sister Leliana is our spymaster. Your assignments will mostly come from her. Commander Rutherford is often busy but you’ll see him at some point, big coat, can’t miss him. And Seneschal Cassandra Pentaghast is…?” he looks to them to finish his sentence for him.

“She is at prayer, your Worship. You’ll find her in the garden outside the chapel.”  A small smirk crosses Josephine’s face. Leliana also smirks.

Alex smiles wider, and nods to Agni. “If you’ll excuse me. We usually have a debriefing in the main keep a few hours after we arrive from a sojourn, and I’d like you there, then you can settle in some more. Leliana, would you show her to the barracks?” He heads towards the garden, Josephine following at his side, relaying more news.

Agni feels a little awkward standing there in front of the other woman, everything around her very new. Behind her comes the sound of a welcome, metal-clad interruption. _The Commander,_ she reckons. _Rutherford sounds Fereldan_.

“My apologies. I wanted to catch the advance party’s quartermaster report to take with me ahead of the meet—oh.” He swallows a word in his throat as she turns to face him, and meets his eyes.

“No worries, ser. This is the new huntress the Inquisitor mentioned in his travel report. Agni An Bhazka Dubois, this is our Commander, Cullen Rutherford.”

Agni can hear the Orlais in her accent, and is about to respond in the language, but her mouth gapes at the blond man in front of her.  She takes a quick silent breath and nods in greeting. _Lady Sky, he’s handsome._ She reaches out to offer a handshake, as is Fereldan custom, she remembers, and he shakes it firmly. But she still can’t speak.

Leliana notices her speechlessness (many did so upon meeting Cullen), and his, but she chooses not to tease them. She purrs her next words. “Agni, I believe the Inquisitor described you as an excellent addition to our scouting and intelligence forces. He spoke very highly of the knowledge you’ve gained about a few regions in our campaign. However,” she glanced quickly at Cullen, “our Commander is also eager to learn what you know about fighting Venatori.”

“Oh. Ah,” she flusters a little before turning to her and responding, “Yes, of course. I’m happy to offer my services as you see fit.”

Leliana smirks a little, but wipes it away and gestures towards a corner. “I’ll show you to the women’s quarters and requisitions. We’d like to gather the War Council in a few hours to discuss what’s happened in the Wastes, and I’m sure you have much knowledge to offer there. I’ll bring you to the meeting. In the meantime, _bienvenue à_ Skyhold. Commander,” she nods as she leads Agni away.

Cullen realizes that he hasn’t even finished a sentence after he saw her face, and his cheeks warm a little. His hand goes to rub where the bevor scratches the nape of his neck. _Keep meaning to fix that._

He looks up just in time to see Agni turn around to look at him one more time, and she stumbles.

Iron Bull’s voice startles him. “Redheads, huh?” he smiles.

“What? Oh. Um. Yes, she is.” He busies himself with a rapidly thinning corner of his overcoat, rubbing the fabric between his finger.

“Awesome in a fight, tell you what. Come to the tavern later, I’m buying her drinks, you should see what’s under that coat,” he smirks.

“Maker’s breath, Bull.” _Impossible, incorrigible Qunari._

Iron Bull chuckles.  “See you, Commander.”  He raises his axe onto his shoulder as he heads towards the blacksmith.

Cullen shakes his head, trying to clear his head of those blue eyes, and looks down at the pile of reports in his hand. _To work._

* * *

For the most part, Agni settles in well, and learns a great deal.

She learns very quickly that she is the only other Avvar in the ranks, the other far afield, but that Skyhold was Avvar once.

She learns that Varric can make anything an epic story, anything but one, the hardest story to tell is the death of Garrett Hawke.

She learns of a voice that whispers and eyes that see impossible things.

She learns that Sera can “shoot the tits off a fly,” as she says, and that raisins are a waste of time.

She learns that Madame de Fer and Solas talk politely with her, but are always busy with something that takes them elsewhere.

She learns that Dorian steals certain looks at Iron Bull when he thinks no one else is looking.

She learns that Cassandra keeps only single blooms, the ones that Alex presses for her, and she knows that she will _kill_ her if she knew she learned that.

She learns that Cullen takes two apples from the kitchen with him when he goes to lauds, feeding one to a horse in the stables, eating the other as he crosses the yard. That he runs hotter than others, sweating a little at the temples when inside the keep But more comfortable outside. She learns that the scar on his lip moves a fraction before the rest of his face does when he smiles.

And she learns that Blackwall has hundreds of stories of chevaliers. Père Dubois would love to be here, she remembers wistfully, and she asks all the questions she can think of, and he humors her, even finds books on Orlesian warcraft and sits down with her, walking through the diagrams. Soon she learns that he knows where the flowers on Josephine’s desk come from. In exchange for her silence, she asks him to show him how to lance, parry with a roundel, and Orlesian rules for the shortsword.

Cullen also learns some things about the huntress.

He realizes his own prejudice against the Avvar was based solely on Movran the Under, and that was a piss-poor example.

He sees Varric stare at inks to match the color of her hair, and he knows that it needs a mix of dark red and gold.

He finds her on the top floor of the Herald’s Rest, curled up in a corner, crying softly, but soon as he musters the courage to walk over, she stops, listening to a voice.

He sincerely hopes that she never picks up Sera’s penchant for pranks with the time they spend together. But it is fun to watch them at the targets.

He takes a sharp breath when she spars with Cassandra and the Seeker goes for an overhead strike when she’s at least a foot taller than her, and his ears ring when she catches the blow with daggers.

Cullen learns that he can tell her laugh from anywhere. There are two: a soft chuckle that sounds like it comes from her chest, and a hearty, loud laugh that comes from the tavern at night when she drinks with the Chargers.

And she spends hours in the stables with Blackwall, and he can see the firelight from his tower, and it makes something in his chest twist when he hears both laughs.

He learns a great deal one sunny day as he watches Iron Bull fill her mug with something that makes her wince, when suddenly he shouts, “ _Meravas!_ Show me what you’ve got, huntress” and that _thing_ in his chest drops.

* * *

“So.” _CLANG._ “She’s settling in alright?” asks Alex, joining his Commander and a surprising number of spectators at the training ring. _CLANG._

 _WHUMP._ Bull stumbles after she sweeps the leg, ramming the sparring axe down into the ground to regain his balance. _“_ Holy balls, that’s _hot_ ,” he groans.

Cullen leans forward, elbows on the rail. “I’d say so.” It’s hard not to stare. In the midday sun she’s removed her coat, fighting in a thin sleeveless chemise, which leaves so little to the imagination for its close fit. A sheen of sweat makes her tanned skin glow, and when she looks up to catch him watching her, his throat is suddenly very dry.

“Point to m—,” she smirks, and before she can finish the sentence she ducks a swing and rolls forward, and catches his swing with her blades. She is _fast_ and quiet and at some point Cullen wonders if they realize they’re both just teasing each other.

The crowd is loving it, though, and he sees Alex smile at something that’s letting the Inquisition let their hair down with for a while, so to speak. They’re cheering with every swing and clash of metal.

Agni bounces lightly on her feet, keeping the practice daggers swinging, and takes in the crowd with a smirk. She meets her opponent’s eye, and a conversation happens. One big showy move to finish it off.

She starts running at him as he prepares for a swing, she slides into the dirt right underneath him, and launches up to climb him like a tree, sitting on his shoulders. It’s the move Varric swears the Champion of Kirkwall used to slit the Arishok’s throat, Cullen realizes, and before he can call it to a halt, Agni drops the daggers and pulls at her neck, wrapping her green veil around Iron Bull’s horns, crowing.

The Qunari spy obliges her for a split second before he grabs her ankles and hurls her into the air, and she twists once, _Maker I can’t watch_ , and just before she hits the dirt, he catches her and pins her to the ground.

“Point to _me_ ,” Iron Bull laughs, Agni reaches up and pulls the veil over his eye, and the crowd goes insane.

Alex’s eyebrows are raised, and he lets out a soft whistle. “Good show.”

Cullen’s heart is furiously pounding in his chest.

Iron Bull laughs with his whole body, gently untangles the veil from his horns, bellows “Drinks on me!” and the crowd cheers again.

Alex is glad that he doesn’t say what he said after they killed their first dragon. But he knows he’s thinking it.

Agni is smiling in the adrenaline high she’s riding, and jumps back onto her feet seconds before Iron Bull takes her wrist and gently pulls her towards the tavern.

She stops to pick her veil up off of the ground, and that’s when she looks up and sees him.

Cullen does not move, or take his eyes off of her face.

After a beat, she turns and enters the tavern.

Alex learns something about his commander and one of his new scouts.

Cullen hurtles into his tower, shuts the door behind him and takes a deep breath of the familiar smells of parchment and leather-bound books. He lightly bangs the back of his head on the door. If he had hesitated a moment longer, he would have his knees in the dirt, tangling his hands in braids of red hair and losing himself in her completely.

 _Work. Work will distract me_. And he sits down, and appreciates that the heavy rainfall outside drowns out the singing in the tavern.

* * *

Hours later, a fist pounds at the door. Cullen rises and opens the door with one hand, the other held out ready to receive whatever was offered.

Agni stands in front of him, rain-soaked, blue eyes darkened.

“Maker’s breath, what are you—”

She leaps at him, instinctually he catches her in his arms, she wraps hers around his neck, her wet leathers _thwap_ against his chestplate, and her lips are on his and Cullen gasps into her.

And it feels _perfect_ , and he tightens his hold.

She smells like the fresh mountain rain that’s soaked through her hair and clothes, and her mouth opens to him, drawing him in, tasting of clean sweat and … _mead_.

Lots of it.

It’s overwhelming, and Cullen lets himself kiss her once more before he breaks it to speak.

“You’re drunk.”

“Quite.” She leans in to kiss him again, but this time he pulls away.

“Agni—”

She purrs and Maker that does something to him. It would be so easy, she is right there, she wants him—

“I can’t.”

That sobers her up a fraction, and she opens her eyes and looks at him.

“You can’t,” she repeats.

“No. Not like this.” He steps away, already lamenting the distance he’s putting between them.

“…Oh.” She sways a little on her feet, and leans back into the door, and then slowly slides down onto the floor. _Lady, I’ve gotten it all wrong_.

Cullen can see it in her face. “Not… not _now_.”

“…Oh.”

“How much have you _had_?”

Her brows furrow. “I don’t think I’ve ever had more than a few.” But her cheeks are bright pink, and her words are all sewn together.

“Let me guess. Your mug was never empty.”

“Ah. Right.” She has to get out of here now, before she is crushed under the weight of her embarrassment. She pushes herself up off the floor, and the sudden movement makes her stomach lurch. “I … should go,” but she doubles forward and Cullen just barely grabs a bucket. This part he does not miss at all, nor does he miss the hangover he’s sure she’ll have tomorrow.

“Come here.” He gathers her in his arms and slowly helps her up and over to the corner of his office near the fireplace, and searches for a few spare furs and blankets. By the time he gets back to her, she’s asleep, and he lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

* * *

Agni wakes up to what feels like a bronto running right through her head. _Oh, the mead_. The taste in her mouth is pure decomposing varghest, and she finds herself wishing her own demise. If she can just reach out for her pillow—

She finds a table leg instead, and she attempts to open her eyes. Just one cooperates at first, but what it sees immediately snaps the other to compliance.

She is not in her bed. She’s not even in the barracks. This isn’t even a bed. She’s on top of a few furs. On the floor. In a tower that smells like leather and books, like her tent in the Wastes.

She is on the floor of Cullen’s office.

Agni bolts upright, both surprised and relieved to find that she is still in her leathers, which feel like they’re stuck to her clammy skin, still damp from the rain.

 _He didn’t take me to bed. But … I wanted him to._ _Oh, Lady._ She remembers now, and her hand shoots out to find the bucket in her peripheral vision, into which she empties the contents of her stomach.

She feels like death.

When the worst is over, she looks around the new surroundings. Bookshelves filled to the top, a desk covered in papers. An armchair in a corner with a lantern and a few books left open in it. A small trail of disturbed dust that shows the small table had been moved to where she was, and there is a plate of potato bread and sausages, a waterskin, and a note.

 _Step 1: I hope you found the bucket. Hopefully you did not tip over the table in process.  
__Step 2: Eat.  
__Step 3: Drink. (It’s water. I hear it’s better for you.)  
__Step 4, optional: Packet of elfroot powder.  
S_ _tep 5: Feel better. I’ll see you when I get back._  
_-Cullen_

Agni can’t help the smile on her face, imagining the Commander of the Inquisition’s forces writing her a get-well note. She finishes the entire plate of breakfast, empties the elfroot powder into the water and drinks the whole mixture, and can almost _feel_ the color coming back to her cheeks.

When she finally gets herself together, and ventures outside, the sun is still far too bright, too loud.

Skyhold is surprisingly quiet.

She sees Jim walk towards the tower in no hurry with a stack of reports under his arm, head down until he looks up and starts a little at the sight of her.

“Agni. Were you … in the Commander’s tower?” _No one is going to believe this._

“Where is everyone?”

“The Inquisitor and the advisors left for the Winter Palace this morning. To save the Empress.”

 _Well, that will give me time to clean up the mess,_ she thinks.


	5. The Frostback Basin

“ _Ancestors_ , must you do that?” Harding’s voice shivers from where she has her back firmly up against the tree trunk. She is not good with heights, even if it’s one of few advantages they have against the Jaws of Hakkon in the survey tour.

“Oh, sorry, Lace,” Agni stops swinging her legs over the platform edge as she scans the landscape just below the horizon with parchment in one hand and charcoal in the other, sketching for topography. She finishes the section she’s working on and nods to her partner, and together they (slowly, for Harding’s nerves) take the pulley rope down to the forest floor and carefully make their way back to the outpost.

It is a routine they’ve established over the past week of survey. The Inquisitor’s party is due any moment now, and Agni is itching to find out if Alex will let her come to Stone-Bear Hold with the retinue. This is what keeps her sober and working even when she chokes up in sudden memories of her mother.

Harding takes Agni’s maps with her into the main tent when the Inquisitor’s retinue arrives, and Agni can hear her quiet words underneath Kenric’s Starkhaven brogue while she files route maps from the traveling detail. After about an hour, she is surprised when Cullen emerges from the tent to summon her. But there is no time to say anything more—they are strictly business now, and she’s fine with this. _I just need to know if I’m coming with._

The Inquisitor’s tent is large, and warmer than most of the camp thanks to two braziers. After Cullen shows Agni in he finds a spot close to the exit, which she supposes is marginally cooler. Alex is at his desk, scanning a report. Josephine is warming her hands by one of the fires, talking with a dark-haired woman badly dressed for the weather that has her back turned towards the entrance—but no one sees a shiver run up her spine as she comes in.

The woman looks around, but does not say anything.

Sister Leliana, on the other side of the tent, speaks first. “Scout Dubois. Harding tells me your work here was instrumental in keeping the camps thriving and safe. The Inquisition thanks you.”

Agni doesn’t quite know how to reply to this, so she nods in acknowledgment, and doesn’t say anything.

Alex’s eyes smile as he looks up. “After Lord Kenric’s report of Inquisitor Ameridan, we came straight here from the Winter Palace.” His eyes dart briefly to the stranger. “This was your mother’s home, yes? How do you think we’ve done so far with the Avvar?”

Agni can feel all eyes on her and she swallows before speaking. “The Avvar believe in singing to the gods to tell them of deeds. If we are honest about our intentions to find out anything about Inquisitor Ameridan, it will be respected. Along that line, it’s one thing to acknowledge our strength, but it’s another to show it off. I think if we approach with mostly our military forces but keep them outside the hold, it would be better received than, say the Orlesian preference for…”

“Showing off,” Cullen grumbles lightly.

Agni does not correct him. After a moment, she adds, “Also, we haven’t seen the hold engage the Hakkonites in combat, so I don’t think we can expect any help from them there.”

Alex nods. “That makes sense along with the other reports I’ve seen. Thank you, Agni. Commander, please add her to the retinue detail, as part of my guard. Now, if you’ll excuse me,” he gets up from his desk and makes his way over to the stranger. “Lady Morrigan, I think—”

Agni can’t hear anything beyond the thunder of her heart pounding in her ears. _I’m going to see her home_.

She practically bursts out of his tent and runs to the barracks to soap her leathers and shine her chestplate until they gleam. Then she does Harding’s, and Professor Kenric’s. Then she brushes her horse. And then she waits.

* * *

Alexander Trevelyan enters Stone-Bear Hold with his seneschal and his commander alongside him, and a compliment of a scout, a Templar, and a scribe behind them. Agni tries very hard not to be obvious with her head turning every which way, trying to take it all in. The fact that Cullen is ahead of her keeps her focused on being still.

But this is her mother’s people, this was home at one time, and after years of begging her mother to tell her about the Avvar, it feels like home and something new all at once. The crowd gathered around two men climbing a cliff, she remembers, is the Test of the Lady. Somewhere in the hold is an augur, a space for Tests of Hakkon, and a great hall. And the hold-beast Storvacker will have a nest by the Thane’s fire, and Agni wants to see it.

On a platform near the cliff stands two Avvar, one in horns, and they are encouraging the climbers and goading each other on. Agni narrows her eyes at the horned one, recognizing his paint as Hakkonite, and Cassandra sees this as well, nudging Alex. He nods lightly in acknowledgement, but does not break his stride in walking up to the platform.

Cassandra announces him. “Thane of Avvar, introducing Lord Inquisitor Alexander Trevelyan, Shepherd of the Order of Templars.”  Agni grimaces a little. Orlesian title recital is customary, and she herself is evidence that the Orlesians and Avvar trade often, but she knows that absolutely no one here cares unless it’s a legend-mark.

A tall masked man walks up from behind but is keeping his distance. Agni recognizes him as an augur by his beads and fur. “Inquisition. You stand before Svarah Janesdotten, Svarah the Sun-Hair, Thane of Stone-Bear Hold, Keeper of Storvacker.” There’s a light chuckle somewhere.

Agni blinks. The names were strange on her ears. She focuses on staying still, all the while keeping her eyes on the Hakkonite.

Thane Sun-Hair, bundled in furs, nods and speaks with a voice that sounds familiar to her. “We’ve heard of your arrival, lowlander. You have guest-welcome here. Come share my fire, where we might speak,” and she gestures towards her hall.  

Alex turns to look at the man that was not announced, who is staring him down. “I need no talk of names. I am Gurf Harofsen,” he folds his arms in front of him. “This is not my hold, lowlander. I will not shed your blood here. You will face the full might of the Jaws of Hakkon soon enough.”

Alex says nothing and turns away, and the party follows. 

Once seated by the fire, Svarah lowers her hood, showing a leather skullcap. “Your Inquisition has done much to heal the holes in the sky. We are grateful. You and your people have come far from the safety of the lowlands.”

“We have not come to cause trouble in your home, Thane. We have learned that the last Inquisitor may have died here hundreds of years ago. We seek his body.”

Svarah nods. “Giving peace to the dead is a worthy quest. Any help we can offer is yours. Sadly, the Jaws of Hakkon will not offer so warm a welcome.”

Alex tilts his head a fraction towards Agni. “So my scouts tell me.”  

Svarah follows the gesture and pauses on Agni’s face before continuing. “You have met their Thane, Gurd Harofsen. I wager you have crossed blades with the Jaws of Hakkon in the wilderness.”

“We have.”

“If you would search this place for your Inquisitor’s body, they will want you to pay in blood.”

Agni notices the pictographs on the wall behind the thane’s seat as Alex asks more questions about Storvacker, who is missing (and a bad omen for the hold), and the Jaws of Hakkon. Their conversation ends with the thane inviting them to explore the hold, and take a boat to the Lady’s Rest. Before she knows it, Alex is taking his leave, and as she makes to follow, Svarah calls out.

“You’re Bhazka’s daughter, aye?”

Agni had thought she would have a number of things to say, and promptly loses all of them.

Svarah has gotten up from her throne, adding “Come closer to the fire, child,” and she does, meeting the thane’s gaze.

Alex gently pulls on Cassandra and Cullen’s arms to stay behind, right by the entrance, giving them space but staying close by.

“Ah, I see it now. You have his hair and her eyes. _Our_ eyes.”

“You … knew my parents, _min thane_?” she tries in her childish Avvish.

Svarah laughs and Agni hears her mother in it. “Aye, I think I did a bit.” She pulls at the pelt around her waist to open her thick coat. “Tell me, what is your name? All of it?”

She swallows, the words somehow dying in her throat. “Agni. Agni An Bhazka Dubois. But now I think I have it wrong.”

“Those are older words that some holds still use, or the stubborn do. You are Agni Bhazkadotten. Your mother is Bhazka Jaynesdotten. As am I.”

“So, you…”

“She was my sister, I am your kin.” Her eyes are smiling.

Agni swallows again, and takes a deep breath, coughing in between the reflexes.

“I think you need a drink, dotted. Come, I will send for good mead, this is a Rilla-blessed day, my niece has returned!” She beckons the party back. “Everyone!”

* * *

By the time the mead arrives, Agni’s head is swimming with questions. Her jacket is off now that they are around the fire, Svarah is down to shirt and breeches, the Commander still near the entrance where it’s cooler. Alex and Cassandra are seated together near him.

Sarah smiles as she remembers. “Your father was trouble, I knew it. Head full of blood-red hair, voice that could make flowers grow in dead of winter. He charmed all the lasses when the caravan came through for the spring-thaw trading. Bhazka wanted nothing to do with him at first, saying she was too busy with our sister’s bride-dressing,” she presses an entire flask of mead in Agni’s hands, “Then Imhar the Trickster had other plans, we reckon. Came back the next spring grown into his nose even more and taller and Bhazka was lost to him. You were born the next winter.”

“Why didn’t they stay?” The mead is cool and sweet, and it fills her with a strong need to be here, forever.

A fraction of a frown crosses Svarah’s face for a moment. “How much did they tell you?”

Agni shakes her head. “They talked of the night feasts that they snuck into to meet, but every time I asked about why they didn’t stay both of them said that the trading meant they had to keep moving.”

Svarah sighs and stares into the flame. “This is not easy, _dotten_ , Korth give me strength to tell it.” She takes a deep drink of her flagon and Agni does the same to tame her racing heartbeat. “You understand, yes, that the gods need to hear us. We offer praise for their creations, thank them for blessings, pray for removing challenges.

“Your father would not speak to our gods in our ways for what they gave him, a beautiful mate and a healthy child on the way. Then Thane Helmut from Red-Hold wanted to broker a deal for a Stone-Bear bride, and picked Bhazka. She was barely swollen with ye. Your da disagreed, of course, even if he never untied your mother’s knots. So, to settle the dispute, the thanes called for a Test of Korth. He refused again. To this day, I don’t know why. But this angered the gods and the holds.

“When you were born, Rilla must have been angry. Korth, too. It was an awful thunderstorm, and you would not stop crying no matter how much milk you drank. Both our augur and Red-Hold’s decreed you were born with a curse not seen in many ages. It started small, you made every fade-walker near you cringe with your screams. At some point they ordered your family banished.

“Even now, _dotten_ , now that I know who you are and would embrace you as my kin, I cannot have you here for long. My augur and our casters will not be safe from your curse.” All the breath leaves her, and she slumps.

Agni’s eye burn with the sting of tears, her head throbs.

“I’m … cursed?”

“We call your like _magebane_. Lowlanders call them Templars.”

Agni’s blood freezes.

* * *

In the Inquisitor’s tent, minds are racing.

Cassandra, seated by the brazier next to Morrigan, has her hands steepled together and is resting her forehead against them. Cullen slowly rubs the corner of his overcoat, and one of Josephine’s thumbs is flicking at the edge of an empty quill. Leliana is in her usual corner, as far away from Morrigan as she can.

Alex is trying hard not to pace, and walks around the tent straightening everything with more attention than usual. Finally, he speaks to break the silence. “This can’t be right. Maybe something is lost in translation between Avvish and Common. Do we have any translators?”

Josephine shakes her head. “Not in Avvish, your Worship,” she informs him quietly.

“Their augur was quite adamant about removing her from the hold sooner rather than later. Said their mages and spirits were restless with her even nearby.”

“Yes, I’m quite aware, Cullen” Alex snaps. “ _But you of all people would know, there is no such thing as a natural-born Templar!_ ” he yells, slamming down a pile of papers with some force. He is furious at his embarrassment—mere moments after he meets the Avvar, he finds the answer to what’s been nagging at him for the past few weeks about _someone in his very own ranks_ and he couldn’t control the information.

No-one speaks for a moment.

Morrigan clears her throat. “Inquisitor? There…might be more to this.” All eyes turn to her, even Leliana’s, and she continues. “When she came into the tent before, I could … _feel her_. I thought ’twas the wind, but perhaps I’ve been wrong. Pray tell, have any of the other mages reacted to her?”

Something clicks in Alex’s head. Dorian kept his distance from her in the Hissing Wastes. And Vivienne and Solas seldom shared the same space with her, whether they noticed it or not. “I’ll have to ask at Skyhold.”

Leliana asks, “This still doesn’t explain how this can happen. Templars come to be after years of study, prayer and lyrium,” she looks over to Cullen.

“Yes, but for all the magic the Inquisition has seen and experienced, is it really so unreasonable to think that all this time, we’ve only thought that the Andrastian Chantry creates templars, but they can exist elsewise? Your Anchor, even, is not something easily explained,” Morrigan reasons.

Alex pinches at the corners of his eyes with his right hand. “I’ll write some letters to Dorian and Solas. Meantime, let’s not forget why we’re here. Cullen, I want extra guards on patrols if we can spare them now that we know the Hakkonites will fight us. Tell everyone to keep an eye out for any more signs of Storvacker as well. I’ll take Seeker Pentaghast, Varric and Iron Bull with me to the island for Ameridan. Thank you, everyone,” he dismisses them.

Cassandra stays behind. “Alex,” she only calls him by his name in private. “I think … I think there’s something in the tome I got from Caer Oswin. Let me do some more reading.”

Alex nods, takes her hand, and kisses her knuckles. “Thank you, Cassandra.”

* * *

It’s only been days, but the words still burn in her mind.

Agni is lying down on her cot in the barracks but does not sleep, cannot sleep, cannot speak. Varric is writing two cots down, watching her every so often. He does not write about this, but he does keep an ear open when the Commander comes in and sits down on the cot next to her.

“Tiny was in earlier, offered to help her let off some steam on the last of the Hakkonites. She didn’t move. Oh,” he holds up a bottle, “And he left this for her, but I’m going to keep an eye on it.”

Cullen nods, and searches the huddled-up form under the blanket to find her head. “Agni.”

The blanket moves a little.

He decides not to press it. “I’m sorry it hurts you. When you’re ready and if you want to, we can talk.”

There is no movement except for what looks like a deep breath.

And then, “Thank you.”

That’s all he can ask for, he feels, and for a while he’s content to stay there for bit, just to be nearby, much like what Varric is doing now.

Outside the tent, he can hear the fast gallop of a messenger. When he hears them yelling for the Inquisitor’s eyes only, he gets up and walks out towards the movement.

Alex’s brow furrows deeply, and he nearly crumples the missive in his hand, stopping only when he sees his advisors have gathered in front of him. The broken seal is black, meaning it’s come from Leliana’s spies.

Cullen scans over the few words, hastily written.

 _Blackwall has left the Inquisition.  
__It appears to have something to do with the impending execution of a man called Mornay,_  
_one of the soldiers responsible for the Callier massacre_.

Alex turns to yell. “We ride for Val Royeaux! _Now!_ ”


	6. Skyhold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bit more irresponsible drinking, I'm sorry.

Agni is quiet the entire trip from Val Royeaux, but her jaw hurts from clenching her teeth and she keeps a tight grip on the rope that leads the horse Blackwall rides. She asked for prisoner detail, and Alex was so angry he waved it off just to be done with it.

The main hall is packed with spectators now, visitors and Inquisition forces alike straining their necks to hear if the rumors are true.

Josephine can barely look at him. “For judgment this day, Inquisitor, I must present Captain Thom Rainier, formerly known to us as Warden Blackwall. His crimes, well, you are aware of his crimes. It was no small expense to bring him here, but the decision of what to do with him is now yours.”

“Don’t think I’ve saved you. Your life belongs to me.”

“Another thing to regret,” he moans, turning to look in Josephine’s direction. He turns his head further and can see Agni in his peripheral vision, and shakes his head. “I know you put another man in my place. Haven’t enough died for me?”

Agni clenches her hands into fists.

Alex enunciates every syllable through gritted teeth. “Your opinions will no longer be considered. You’ve lost that privilege. _I_ decide what becomes of you now.”

The ambassador shudders and looks away, and Alex catches the movement.

“And what becomes of me?” He’s almost sneering.

“You have your freedom.” The hall rumbles with reactions.

“It cannot be as simple as that.”

“It isn’t,” Alex leans forward. “You’re free to atone as the man you are, not the traitor you thought you were or the Warden you pretended to be.”

The prisoner breathes deep. “The man I am? I barely know him. But he— _I_ have a lot to make up for.” He closes his eyes, then turns to look at Agni for a moment. “If my future is mine, then I pledge it to the Inquisition. My sword is yours.” Then a wry smile. “If I’d said anything less, would an arrow from the rookery have snuffed me like a candle?”

Alex glares at him, because he just might be right. Or if not from the rookery, it might come from Herald’s Rest. “Take your post, _Thom Rainier._ ”

His shackles are unlocked, and a path clears in the sea of people ahead to let him out.

Agni’s face is red with anger, and she follows him out until she changes her path to the tavern.

* * *

Hours later, the merchants and hospital staff in the lower yard jolt at the sound of her anger.

“ _Rainier_ ,” she yells, daggers unsheathed and ready as she stomps over, tears streaming down her reddened face. ” _Toi et moi, lâche, dans l'arène. Now!_ ”

Alex is very quickly losing his patience. He is tired, he hasn’t slept well in days, and his mind is still reeling from the Old Temple. He hasn’t even had time to read the historian’s and arcanist’s reports on Ameridan.

But because a damned scout or Templar or whatever the Void she is has a temper and a penchant for mead, he’s running down the stairs two at a time to beat her to the stables. He should have seen this coming, he knew she looked up to him…

Harding has caught up to her and has hands on her arms. “Agni, stop, please, this accomplishes nothing.” A runner sprints up the steps to the tower above, another back toward the tavern.

She snarls. “Oh, I beg to differ, Lace. It’ll make me feel much better with this murderer _connard_ gone back to the Lady.” She bares her teeth and Harding pushes against her while Alex runs and puts himself in front of the man he pardoned.

“Stand down, Dubois. You would do well to remember your place.”

“ _Bullshit_. Korth will have me bring justice.” Harding begins to lose her foothold in the dirt.

“I will not tolerate in-fighting under my banner,” Alex’s voice is loud, clear, and terrifying, “Stand down.”

Blackwall—Rainier—gently nudges his arm as if to push him aside. “Inquisitor, please. I … need to.”

“You will do no such thing. My judgment is law, she knows it. I will not have my decisions tested by in-fighting.” _Damn me for not having a dagger._

Agni’s yell is audible and Alex is ready to point at her throat with the crackling green in his left hand, but Rainier walks slowly towards her, unarmed, hands up. “You’re drunk, _chère_ ,” he placates, “this isn’t the honorable way.”

She wails. A dagger raises, pointed towards his throat, the other held back by her ear. “ _What do you know about honor?!_ ” There is the smallest sway in her stance as the drink catches up to her, and the raised weapons shake a little in her grip. “You _killed_ them. Even their _children_. And then you _lied_ , and you would have let that man die to cover you! And you _dare_ speak of chevaliers, I _trusted_ you, how dare y—“

Her sentence is interrupted by the movement to her right as Cullen races down the last of the stairs and towards them. His face is pale, but his mouth is set in a thin line. She can’t read his eyes.

“I will not warn you again, Agni. _Stand. Down._ ”

Cullen holds his hands out to placate, just as Rainier has. “Please, Agni. No good can come of this.”

Agni turns her head, watching between the three men in front of her, and can feel the vomit rising in the back of her throat.

“‘Good.’ Good left him a long time ago. All the more reason I should return him to the sky.” Agni raises her daggers to start driving them into Rainier’s head, and then a flash of light blinds her for a second as a barrier forms around him a fraction of a second before she gets to him. Her face twists in anger and she turns to find the mage and she finds Dorian at the top of the steps, staff in hand, hands outstretched, with fear all over his face.

 _I’ll show him he’s right to fear. I’ll show_ _them_ _._

Agni breathes in and pulls from the anger and hatred spinning inside her, forcing all of the pent-up forces out in her glare at the Tevinter mage, and instantly he falls to his knees, choking as all of the air and magic leaves his body at once. A drop of blood falls from his nose, and he collapses onto the stone.

As she feels the barrier protecting her target dissipate, she turns to face him, and there’s a sharp pain to the base of her skull before her vision goes black.

Alex doesn’t move for the moments that follow, and then drops the statue from Bonny Simms’s table.

“See to the wound at the back of her head and then take her to the dungeons,” and, after a thought, “Tell Cabot and Bull she’s cut off.”

* * *

This time, not only does her mouth feel like she’s been snacking on the Deep Roads, but she can guess from the smell that she’s underground, and somewhere damp. After a few deep breaths, she can also smell the cold iron of the bars. Her head hurts when she opens her eyes, and for a moment she thinks she’s damaged an eye. But she blinks and finds that there’s a full waterskin inches from her face, blocking her vision.

And she can hear someone sighing, supposedly with relief, but likely also in frustration. She quickly grows very self-conscious, remembering the last time he found her drunk.

“I’ve made a great mess of this, haven’t I?” she croaks.

“It’s not good,” he says manner-of-factly. He decides not to mention the conversation he had with Alex, or that he practically begged Cassandra to appeal to him. Fortunately the latter was much easier. He wants to know, though, “Why him?”

She manages to sit up, and uncorks the waterskin. “My father would have given his left arm to become a chevalier. Any time he met one on the trade routes, he’d deeply discount or even give away things to hear whatever they would tell him. And that’s what I grew up cherishing. Rainier kept that going, we spent hours in the stable and I’d even listen to him tell every bawdy joke he knew as long as it came from a chevalier once,” she takes another deep drink, “‘Course, it sounds especially dumb now, doesn’t it.”

Cullen doesn’t reply.

“ _Père_ was a good man. The Venatori used him for target practice and he was so sick I couldn’t give him back to the sky. And yet Rainier fucking _walks_ free. It’s not _fair_.” When he still doesn’t say anything, she continues. “So what’s to become of me?”

He picks up the lantern next to his chair and moves it closer to the bars, casting its glow on a plate that should have much less food on it. “The Inquisitor wants you charged with insubordination, reckless endangerment, and assault. The Seeker and I were able to, over the course of a whole day, make him see a more reasonable option.” He swallows.

“Which is?”

He stands, picking up the lantern and moving it to see her face, his own is carefully neutral. “Cassandra wants to speak to you. Pending her decision, you’ll be assigned to the Knight-Commander’s company. Ser Barris will give you your specific orders.”

“When will that be?”

He doesn’t answer her question, instead he sets the lantern down by the plate and heads to the door, knocking once to be let out. “I do hope you feel better soon.”

Agni draws her knees up to her chest and pulls the blanket tightly around her.

* * *

“Hello, Red.”

Even upside down, Agni knows those boots and that voice. She drops her legs and eases out of the handstand against the wall.

“You look like shit. Let’s get you cleaned up. Seeker wants to see you.” In his arms is a bucket with a brush, mirror, soap, and a toothbrush.

“How long have I been here?” She thinks it’s been four days since there have been three plates after Cullen’s.

“Three days. Figure the worst of whatever you drank is long gone out of you.” Varric signals the guards to open her cell and she takes the offered bucket and sack of clothes and towel and heads to the baths.

Afterwards, Harding leads her to the upper levels of the smithy, their footsteps brushing up dust mites into the sunlight. The Seeker’s voice drifts down from the top floor. “Thank you. I could not have done this on my own.”

At the top of the stairs, Agni jolts a little at the sight of Alex seated at the table, his back to her. Cassandra stands over a large leather-bound time on the table. Alex sees her and gets up to leave, but the Seeker holds a hand out, “Please, stay,” and motions for her to sit across the table from the Inquisitor.

“Do you know what the Order of the Seekers of Truth is, Agni?”

She shakes her head. “Only a little from history books. You’re part of the Andrastian Chantry. Sort of Templar watchers.”

“I think what the Avvar call magebane refers to the polar opposite of mages, but all they know these to be are Templars. Your mother’s people would never have known about Seekers. We share many abilities with the Templar Order, but how we come to have them is different. While Templars are raised from prayer and lyrium, we end our vigil … with contact from a summoned spirit. That is how we come to be. I think, Agni, that you were born among spirits, and one of them came upon you as Faith came to me.”

Agni feels something in her chest tighten.

“We have never in the Order’s history seen or heard of a natural-born Seeker. But I … know a thing or two of people with rare magic and skills.” She leans forward, hands on the tome. “The Commander and I have asked His Worship to reconsider charging you for your crimes. Here is what I have to offer: spend the rest of your contract with the Inquisition with me. I can teach you to hone your skills, and after a time, perhaps you would join me in rebuilding the Seekers, if you are willing.”

Alex stays still and quiet. watching Agni take it all in.

* * *

Cullen finds her in the garden after leaving vespers in the chapel, staring at the chess board.

“How are you feeling?”

“I’m glad that they at least let me wash up and clean my teeth first. You would be too if you saw me before.” He sighs at her attempt at a joke. “Better, thank you. And thoroughly repulsed at anything that remotely smells stronger than watered wine.”

“Good,” he sits down on the other side of the board. “Do you play?”

“Badly. My father spent years trying to teach my mother, I watched but never made sense of all the rules.” A beat. “ _He_ offered to teach me.”

The scar on his lip moves before the rest of his face smirks. “He’s a rubbish player. I beat him constantly.”

“You? Really? … Where is he?”

“Down the mountain. The Inquisitor sent a few healers to help the nearby village recover from a snowstorm and a bad flu. I think Rainier is helping with a few building repairs.”

Agni can only nod a little in approval.

“You’re still angry with him.”

“I don’t know if I ever won’t be.”

“I don’t think he’ll ever forgive himself.”

She wants to say that’s a good thing.

“Agni, it does no good to clench onto this hatred.”

She looks at him in the eyes.

“I was … irrationally angry for years. Let myself hate so many after something happened to me—“

“What happened?”

“A—another time. But it made me loathe every mage I ever met, made me automatically assume they were _maleficarum_. It made a good Templar, but an awful human being.”

“What changed?”

“Knight-Commander Meredith Stannard. You know what happened to her?” At her nod, he continues, “Watching her showed me what happens when you let hate drive you.”

A horn blows, signaling a messenger approaching. Cullen takes this as a queue to leave.

“Have you decided?”

Agni’s eyes narrow, her gaze back onto the chess board. “I want to. But I also want to make sure I’m still wanted here. After what I did, can’t be too sure.” She needs to apologize to Dorian.

He nods. “I know how you feel.”

 

The next day, after the War Council, the Commander announces the march on the Arbor Wilds.


	7. The Arbor Wilds

As the Inquisition’s forces march through the sweltering lush greens of the Arbor Wilds, it occurs to Agni that she has never fought alongside more than four people at any given time, and having to fight as a cohesive unit is completely foreign to her, no matter how many histories she’s read. Here, there are more things to worry about: there is a new need to track multiple targets, both friendly and hostile, and there are group movements to sense and follow.

The thought of having to work with a unit to fight whatever lies ahead makes her sweat even more under the reinforced prowler mail that she was issued by the Templar armory, the weight of the helmet unfamiliar and awkward.

As the Templars’ pace quickens, so does her heart, and then there are shouts of courage rallying around her, and she can feel the smites and silences casting around her as they run straight into a horde of maleficarum and Venatori. She pulls off her helm to see and her voice rises with them, firing shot after shot with her bow, the motions as familiar as target practice with Sera or in the desert back home.

 _Home_. Agni’s thoughts drift for a second and a loud crack rings through her ears as the Templar archer next to her crashes into her, his skull bleeding from an enemy arrow and _blessed Lady_ those are red lyrium crystals. Another archer falls on her other side, but this time she dodges, and shuts her eyes and turns away to avoid contamination.

Ser Barris, the Knight-Commander, is on horseback, sword in hand, fighting to press on, yelling to his battalion to press onto the bridge, the Inquisitor is almost there, just keep clearing a path.

Agni panics but keeps firing at everyone, anyone holding a staff. Quickly she runs out of arrows, and starts pulling at any quiver she can find on the ground, still running, her chest heaving as she sees dozens of Templars and archers fall around her, ahead of her, behind her. She runs and it feels like she has been running since the march from Skyhold, but it also feels like they’ve barely started fighting, it happens so quickly.

There will never be a home until the Elder One is dead.

Lightning and fire scorch the ground and Agni realizes the sky is also raining red lyrium dust and crystals from enemy archers again. She ducks behind a tree and pulls at the one thing she snuck into her armor, behind her chest piece, the threadbare green veil, and wraps it around her face before taking a deep breath and raising her bow again.

When she gets to the ruined archway, Ser Barris has lost his horse, now fighting in the stream with his back pressed to the Commander’s, the pair of them swinging at the circle of mages and crusted Red Templars closing in on them—

And that’s when she remembers her father’s face as the red scrambled and took over, and she screams, and she reaches out with her voice and her eyes and her heart. When the smite reaches the mages that circled around them and they fall like gadflies, both Ser Barris and Cullen’s eyes follow the spell and see her running toward them, and the sheer strength of it is enough to give them the half-second of advantage they need to push out of the trap.

Agni runs into the melée, slashing at anything twisted and red, tumbling under swipes and appearing at Barris’s side just as a horrendous jagged claw swipes across his leg. All their eyes widen in panic as they hear him snarl in pain, and Agni follows the sound of a bone-chattering grumble she has heard before.

A lyrium-encrusted behemoth, grown out of a Templar, looms over Barris, claw pulling back, preparing to strike again.

_No._

Cullen has seen it too, and grabs a shield from a body, dashing towards the Knight-Commander. Agni is already next to him, daggers raised and ready to strike, feet running and searching for anything that she can use to jump off of, and before she can even think that _this may not be the best idea_ she settles for the back of the behemoth’s knee as a foothold, stabs a dagger into its arm and jumps, turning to try and land on what could have been a shoulder. Her footing is awful, she can’t stay for long, but it just needs to be enough to find an eye and stab it, and pull as Cullen slides with his shield arm raised to cover Barris from the worst of the blow.

There is a sickening _crunch_ and Agni can’t tell where it’s coming from.

A hulking mass of muscle and horns rushes by and swipes at three Venatori in front of the Commander, followed by a cascade of green lightning crackling through the last of the forces immediately around them, and Agni gasps at the first full breath she can take. The Inquisitor has caught up to them, with Varric, Morrigan and Solas coming out from their hidden positions in a nearby treeline.

Now that she is no longer fighting for her life—at least not at the moment—Agni follows with her eyes as Alex leads his Inner Circle towards a narrow archway leading into a giant stone building covered in ivy.

She finally notices the trickle of blood running down her legs from large gashes across her shins.

“Press on, Inquisitor!” she hears Cullen shout, “The Inquisition will not yield!”

She turns to see Cullen and Barris surrounded by shards and detritus and her heart feels like it could break if it means that Cullen—

“Delrin! Stay with me, man!”

The Knight-Commander is bleeding from the wound on his leg and thousands of cuts on his face and neck, convulsing as the red lyrium finds his blood and sings to it, growing its crystals anywhere it can take root. Agni’s eyes widen and she runs to shove Cullen away. _Not him too, Lady_. “Don’t let it touch you!”

“Th—th—“ words cannot form in Ser Barris’s throat as everything turns to jagged red and they pierce his skin as they find their way out, and it is the most horrific thing Cullen has ever seen in his life, even in Kinloch, even Kirkwall. The horror and strength of Agni’s shove manage to get him away as he can’t help but watch the red lyrium take over.

“The lyrium. We have to—“ she tightens her grip on her dagger.

“No, Agni. I will.” He finds his sword. “I’m sorry, Delrin.” His hands shake as he raises his sword, and so do his words. “And she will know no fear of death, for the Maker shall be her beacon and her shield, her foundation and her sword.” And Cullen swings down, ending his suffering.

The sound of lightning crackling and the green glow of the Anchor light up the archway ahead of them.

“You should go.”

She looks up at him, confused. “What?”

“Judging by the losses we’ve had out here I can’t even imagine what they may face in the Temple. Go. Help what you can. But,” he reaches for her, grabbing red hair at the nape of her neck and pulling, and he kisses her hard through the thin green of her veil. “Come back to me,” he finishes with a whisper, and gently pushes her towards the Temple of Mythal.

* * *

“So close. The Well knows its Vessel…and those who would _despoil_ it.” Calpernia’s voice slithers. “Stand aside, Inquisitor. The trials you set me, I have overcome. As a courtesy, leave _now_ , or not at all.”

Iron Bull can’t help himself. “And you’re … what, another crazy Vint?”

The magister doesn’t acknowledge the insult. “I am called Calpernia. But when I take of the Well, names will be meaningless. Leave. This is not your time.” A shiver runs down her spine as she turns back to the well.

“Take one step closer to that well, and I will finish you,” Alex promises.

Two Venatori pull their blades from dead Sentinels and join her at her side, joined by an archer and a rogue.

The Inquisitor sees something, and hopes that the others have also noticed.

“You serve your people—you have one last chance to save them. The Well of Sorrows overflows with knowledge, power abandoned by those the elves worshipped as gods. To walk the Fade without the Anchor you stole from him—that is what the Well of Sorrows will give Corypheus.”

After a second’s pause, Alex challenges her. “So if I take that power before him, Corypheus will be left empty-handed.” As he hoped, he can hear Iron Bull let out a low, short chuckle.

Solas and Morrigan have seen it too, and take a step backward.

She scoffs. “Simple fool. I knew you would take the well for yourself, to ransack its wisdom to try to defeat Corypheus. Come then,” she raises her arms and points to them, and the Venatori launch themselves at the Inquisition. “One last sacrifice!”

Alex easily ducks from the fireball she hurls at him, turning to see one of the enemy soldiers drive Solas further away from the magister. The Inquisitor throws a look to Iron Bull, who manages a “Sorry, lady!” as he tosses Morrigan into a copse of trees.

The rogue that tackled Solas turns and thrusts an arm out, and the flames in Calpernia’s hands vanish. Her face is pure disbelief and fear. “Wh—a _Templar?! Fasta vass!_ ”

A crossbow bolt slams into her chest, followed by three more, staggering her, and Iron Bull pushes the bolts further into her as he charges, knocking her to the ground.

Alex hurls a storm of green lightning from the Anchor that pushes her even further to the edge of the cliff. The Venatori— _all_ of them—are seized in the air and crash to the ground.

Calpernia winces in agony, turns her head to look at the void below, and snarls, “If I die, it will _not_ be by _your_ hand!” and she rolls over, falling to her death.

Alex doubles over, hands on his knees, catching a breath as Varric runs towards the fallen Venatori, the only one that matters, the one that unleashed the smite, the one they met in the desert.

He pulls off her helmet and peels back the green veil that had tipped them off to her disguise, the cloth now dark and wet and sticky.

“Shit,” Varric curses. Blood is pouring out of her, very quickly. “Potions, all we can spare, now!” _Not her too_.

* * *

The first thing she feels when she awakens is that her chest is _burning_. And then, a moment later, her legs itch. She can smell elfroot.

Alex is sitting on the cot next to her, writing.

She groans as the burn goes deeper.

He looks guilty.

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly, looking over to his left hand, making a fist and releasing it. “It’s … it feels like it’s even stronger now.”

Agni considers sitting up, and quickly her body vetoes the notion. “It’s tied to him. The Elder One?”

He nods.

 _Merde_.

“Thank you. For following.”

“I said I would, _messere_.”

Alex huffs a small laugh.

The tent flaps move, bowls clack, and the Commander is a little surprised. “Apologies, Inquisitor. I didn’t think you’d be here.” He is balancing a bowl of gruel and a few flasks in his hands.

“No worries. I was just about to leave. But I wanted to be here when you woke,” he nods to Agni, smiles a little at what he can feel between the two of them, and leaves the infirmary tent for his own.

Cullen sighs a bit of relief, setting the bowl down on the empty cot. “How are you feeling? Better?”

“There’s still a bit of burning.” This time, she manages to sit up, and tries to move her legs, but a warm gloved hand on her knee stops her, and that’s when she notices the poultices on her shins, but it’s nothing compared to the surprise of Cullen sitting down on the cot next to her, hand still on her knee.

He hands over the flasks in his other hand, and she takes the green one, and it is _potent_. “I can’t say as I’ve been on the receiving end of the Anchor. Not many people are able to tell the tale, or the side effects.”

Agni is staring at her hand, much like Alex was earlier with his, and opening and closing it. The flask had a very strong potion and her head is swimming.

He chuckles, watching her, his thumb lightly tracing a circle on her knee. “That will help with the burning. Now,” he reaches for the bowl, “nothing much more than camp porridge now that we’re packing up, but you need something in you so you can sleep the rest of it off.”

 

She sleeps all the way through the Emerald Graves and almost the entire Frostback Basin.

As they pass through her mother’s lands, Cullen makes two detours: a stream, and Stone-Bear Hold.

Storvacker helps him tell the gods of his thanks, feasting on the offered salmon.


	8. Skyhold

A long week of recovery later, Agni is in front of the archery targets, admiring Sera’s new additions. They’re crude, but she can still make out a large thin man in a skirt and know that it’s meant to be Corypheus, though the serpents coming out of his hair must be creative license.

Sera chews on an apple with her mouth open, head cocked to one side, thinking. “Right then, one in each eye, one in each hand, two draws.”

“These are supposed to be trick shots, Sera,” Agni smiles.

“Blindfolded.”

She nods anyway, and reaches into her vest to pull out a length of bright red silk.

“Ey, where’d your other one go?”

Agni shook her head. “Silly me, I bled all over it. Gone when I woke up.” She does not see the little smirk on Sera’s face as she ties the cloth around her face, and that’s how the elf knows it’s good enough for the test.

She reaches for two arrows from her quiver, nocks, draws, and after a moment where Sera doesn’t even breathe, and looses. She knows Sera won’t offer any guidance—that’s cheating in their game—and so she takes two more arrows for her next shot, nocks, draws, and fires.

Sera huffs, and Agni knows she’s made the shots before she takes off her blindfold.

“Well done,” a stern voice behind her quietly compliments. “May I have a moment of your time?”

“Of course, Seeker,” and Sera has nearly disappeared, as she often does.

They keep a slow pace until they reach the smithy, Agni still stiff after days sleeping off the worst of the injuries. Cassandra leads them to the same table they sat at the week before, and it feels like forever ago. “I am sorry about your Knight-Commander.”

Agni’s brow furrows. “I was barely ever under his command. Not sure if he’s _my_ Knight-Commander.” Her left shin starts to itch a little. “But thank you.”

“Have you met with Knight-Captain Fletcher yet?”

Agni shakes her head. “I think we’re still reeling and regrouping from the Wilds. Or I’ve been asleep.”

Cassandra takes an audible deep breath. “I am not one for small talk, Agni. I want to know if you’ve given thought to my offer.”

“I have.”

“And what do you think?”

She looks down at the thick tome with the heraldry bright white and shining on it. “Are you sure?”

The Seeker sits up even straighter than before. “I am. I have given much of my life to the Seekers, and they have made so much of my life possible. I would not see it end when the world may need it most.”

Agni stares at the dust motes floating in the light, thinking.

“What does it mean?”

Cassandra’s gaze lowers to the tome. “That … is something we would need to figure out together. But I think we should find time to practice your skills and see how they can improve.”

“So, what, find a field of Venatori and unleash me?”

“That’s the more practical approach, if dangerous. We may have further sorties into the Emprise du Lion and the Western Approach which you could do so. And there are,” she holds her hand over the tome, “… _spells_ at our disposal, both here and within the Templars’ tower library.”

Agni is silent for a moment. “And … the Avvar knew nothing of us?”

Cassandra’s eyes glint a little at her word choice. “Perhaps from the Orlesians, but I can’t think elsewise.”

The huntress huffs a little. “Well, then. Might as well be the first.”

“Thank you. I’ll speak to his Wor—“

The room floods with bright green light that crackles through the sunlight. At first Agni thinks it’s just a trick of the stained glass, but then an earth-shaking crack of thunder gallops through Skyhold, making even the solid stone of the buildings shake.

And then, the alarm bells start screaming.

The women bolt out of their seats and run towards the armory.

* * *

“Inquisitor, we have no forces to send with you. We must wait for them to return from the Arbor Wilds.” Cullen’s mind races with faces, names, weapons available, the map in his head gauging the terrain. Josephine and Leliana are running ahead of them, opening doors, the spymaster calling for her forces.

Alex grimaces in pain, holding his left wrist as the Anchor twists and pulses. “Just as well. I’ll take who we’ve got.”

By the time they reach the armory, Alex’s squire is already lifting the silverite mail to dress him, with Iron Bull and Varric already reaching for their racks. As the squire lowers the plates onto his shoulders, Alex catches the red of Agni’s braids appear next to Cassandra’s short black hair, but he does not wait to ask, there is no time.

Cassandra’s eyes dart around the racks, pulls, and thrusts a set of halla leathers into Agni’s arms.

Within minutes the horses are led over to the gatehouse, Sera is visibly shaking, and Dorian hands a giant bag clinking with glass to Vivienne. “No time to argue about how it doesn’t match our attire, my dear. Better to be safe.”

A horn sounds, the gates open, and Agni feels a strong hand grab at her ankle. When she looks down, her eyes widen to see her green scarf tied around a wrist attached to the Commander.

“Be saf—“ Cullen’s words are cut off as she leans down to kiss him.

“I’ll come back,” and then she tears herself away to gallop after the Inquisitor.

Cullen watches them leave, and before he reads the first report thrust into his hands, he turns to run to the chapel. _Andraste preserve them and bring them victory_.

* * *

Agni had asked Varric about the Fade once, curious about the Champion of Kirkwall. He looked up at her through his spectacles, unsmiling, and said, “No.”

From what she was able to discern from Iron Bull, Alex and Cassandra after Theirinfall Redoubt, it was the manifestation of everything that had gone wrong with the world, all in one place.

Here, squatted behind a broken wall, watching a 12-foot magister summon fireballs as tall as a horse and hurling them towards the Inquisitor in rapid succession, Agni is quite sure that this was very much like that.

She dives behind a body to take cover, heaving. Iron Bull is bleeding from every part of his face from the shards of ice, but somehow still grinning like an idiot. Cassandra can barely hold up her shield with her left arm. Alex is screaming like a man possessed, and he very well could be, with the Anchor lighting up the sky.

Every bone in Agni's body hurts, she's bleeding from a slash that went right through her leathers like they were paper, her shins are in agony, her eyes burn, she is covered in sweat, her ears are ringing from the low snarls of the magister.

_This is it, this is how I end._

_One last charge, then._

Agni stumbles up to ready herself, looks up, and sees the saddlebag Dorian handed to Vivienne, on the ground, with broken shards of glass all around it.  The mages are far ahead, the necromancer reaching for every body he can summon, Vivienne well into the fray with a beam of light at her wrist. The huntress ducks and rolls forward, grimacing as she thrusts her hand into the bag of broken glass, looking for a health potion, a jar of bees, _anything_.

All she can find is a vial of bright blue lyrium.

 _Fuck_.

A bolt of lightning races up a stream of water on the ground and up her spine.

The wail of desperation rips through her as she watched her own blood stream onto the ground.

_What if…?_

She pulls the stopper out of the vial’s neck and tilts her head back to drink it in. There is a flash of bitter, and then a cold spice washes over her mouth and throat. It _sings_ in her veins, and it propels her hand up and outward.

She sees blue.

And then a bright light.

And then nothing.

Dorian screams as he feels his magic pulled violently from his body, starting with the base of his skull, through his arms to his hands and down his back. It is the most powerful Smite he had ever felt in his entire life, and he fights to wrench his eyes open just enough to see Vivienne’s spirit blade disappear as she collapses to the ground along with all the ghouls he had in his command. He is left with an emptiness so staggering he too falls to the ground, exhausted and powerless.

There is a strange silence around them as Corypheus falls to the ground, kneeling and bent over, choking from the Smite. 

With a bellow, Iron Bull leaps into an overhead blow to the Elder One, cleaving him in two.  

Alex does not hesitate, and raises the Anchor to the sky with the last strength he can find.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry it's taken me so long to continue, but I will see this through, and hopefully begin a new fic in November 2018. Thank you for staying with me.


	9. Skyhold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I'm really not too good at writing this, but here be a little smut.

The main hall is _so loud._ Agni wonders if the noise is giving anyone a headache, but then she figures that since everyone has a tankard in hand, the real headaches won’t start until tomorrow.

Varric presses a flagon of mead into her hands and smiles. She thanks him with a nod and slips out into the quiet. She walks through the garden, smiling to herself at the singing and cheering, and some of the more devout are in the chapel, offering their thanks, laying prophet’s laurel at the statue’s feet. 

She finds herself on the highest parapet, above the Templars’ tower, where she can look down on everything and everyone. And maybe find him.

“There you are,” footsteps approach from the ladder behind her, and soon the fur of Cullen’s overcoat comes into her peripheral vision.

Agni straightens. “I owe you and Cassandra a report, don’t I?”

He chuckles, low and soft. “I think it can wait.”

Her posture relaxes a little. “So it’s finally done, eh.”

“Thank the Maker,” he sighs automatically, and then he stutters. “That is, ah. Thank you. For...yes. It’s done.”

“So now what?”

He’s recovered a little. “There’ll be a new Divine, for sure. There’s some things to figure out about what we do next. But right now I think not a single soul here is thinking about that or anything like it,” he chuckles again and she could listen to it all her days.

“You’re probably quite right. It’s just felt like we were running from one chaos to the next for a bit.”

“That we were.”

They sit in silence for a while. Below, a few revelers have paired off and amidst all the laughing, cheering, and drinking, they begin to meander into places for a different kind of celebrating being alive.

The silence starts to get uncomfortable, and Cullen decides to take a chance.

“Agni, That night—“

“Oh, Lady, please, I’d rather not—“ she turns to go.

“Agni. Wait.”

She wants to sink into the stone, disappear. This is now without a doubt the worst moment of her life.

“Please. Let me...” Cullen takes her wrists into his hands, keeping her there, drawing her close.

He took off his gloves, she notices, and there’s still a bit of green fabric around his right wrist.

“That night, I turned you down, yes. But not for what you think.” His fingers gently graze her chin, and his touch is so warm she shivers. “You were well into your cups. I didn’t want you to do anything you might regret. Or forget.”

Her mouth gapes open slightly.

Cullen leans in and closes the gap, kissing her, just once, slowly but gently. He doesn’t show the jolt he feels as he remembers the first time she kissed him, but he feels it, everywhere. 

She opens her eyes and they’ve darkened, and he wants another closer look, so he takes her face in his hands, feeling her shiver, and presses another slow kiss to her cheek.

“So, you...”

“Yes,” he whispers into her ear, and Agni can feel his voice all the way down to her center, and she closes her eyes.

“...Yes?”

“Yes,” he repeats, chuckling, kissing her earlobe.

“...Yes.” She has definitely lost all other words, but it doesn’t matter now since his mouth is on hers again.

After a moment that she does not want to end, Cullen pulls away, and she whines until she realizes that he’s pulling her hand to follow him down.

His office is dark, and for a second Agni’s stomach lurches a little remembering the last time she was up here. But she barely has time to revisit much of the memory for Cullen’s mouth covering hers as he closes and locks the door behind them, pressing her against it briefly to deepen the kiss, to tangle his hands in her hair.

She smells like fresh air and leather, and he keeps feeling torn between breathing her in and swallowing every breath he can wring from her, never wanting this to end.

He is heat and strength and protection, and even as the steel of his plate presses into her, she wants more because it fills the scratching gaping in her chest.

But it does get to be a bit too much, and he’s wearing too many things, and she wants to wrap herself around him, and she summons enough strength to push him away and reach for the leather straps that buckle him in, and he knows what she’s after, shrugging out of his overcoat and pulling at the other strap. 

There is a loud _clang_ as a gauntlet falls to the stone floor and both of them cringe at the sound, and then find themselves giggling before slowing down to properly remove the other along with the couters and pauldrons. 

After the breastplate comes off he’s on her again, already away from her for too long, sighing into her neck as she runs a shaky hand from his shoulders, across his broad chest and the soft worn chemise, down to his waist, pulling him back closer to her, needing to kiss him again.

Cullen starts backing away from the door towards the ladder, catching the heels of his boots with his toes and pulling them off, nearly tripping over in the process, smiling at his own clumsiness against her mouth. He keeps breathing her in, wanting more, never wanting to let go, but the sooner they get upstairs, the sooner he can get that.

_Blasted ladder._

He manages to break away from her long enough for her to open her eyes and see the brief but unwelcome obstacle, and he sees that her eyes are blown dark, her lids heavy with desire, and he’s suddenly aware that he is hard, jutting against his breeches, and his cheeks color a little.

Agni does not notice because she has already scrambled up the ladder. _Maker, she’s fast._

Cullen barely gets to the top of the ladder before she pulls him in to kiss him again, _more, yes, always more of him_ , and feels his fingers against her abdomen, pulling at the buckles of her coat. _More, yes, more._

The coat falls to the floor with a _whump_ and she feels ten degrees cooler and hotter all at once, and fights the urge to wrap him around her because there are more clothes.

She pulls the hem of his shirt from the waistband of his breeches, immediately running her hands onto his skin and up and he raises his arms to pull it off of him and suddenly her throat runs dry at the expanse of chiseled muscle and golden skin and _he should never be allowed to wear a shirt, ever and oh he’s lifting mine and I should help_. The green silk around his wrist is dark in the dim light, his hands are warm against her skin and she can feel the rough calluses on his hands and she can die happy right here but there’s so much more—

He’s watching her face, waiting. With a deep breath, she takes his hands in hers and leads them to the ties of her breastband, and his eyes drop down over her shoulders and skin for just a moment before meeting her gaze again and her knees shake a little when she hears him take a sharp breath.

“Maker, you are perfect.”

Agni wants to shake her head and tell him he’s wrong, she’s far from it, but can’t make out the words or take her eyes off him as he runs his fingers up her back, buries his hands in her hair and kisses her, harder this time, gently guiding her to follow him to the bed.

He sits down on the edge, she automatically follows onto his lap, and he palms a breast with one hand, nearly shuddering with arousal, the other hand gently pulling at the ties of her breeches. Her arms wrap around his shoulders and she grabs fists of his hair.

She sighs in pleasure and the sound goes straight to his groin, and he is tempted to bite at the pink nipple in his mouth to feel her, hear her respond.

But there would be another time for that. Now all he can do is try not to shout into her skin as he presses his cock into her and wraps himself in the wet heat of her cunt. 

_This, all this, is worth everything_.

Agni gasps for air that she’s forgotten how to breathe as she is overwhelmed by the hard heat of him, his arms wrapped around her back, hands in her braids trying hard not to pull her down harder, faster, but that’s what she _needs_ now and always.

_Lady be praised_.

Cullen is pulling and thrusting and sighing with the overwhelming bliss of their joining, and for a second he thinks Agni is pulling away from him but she is only leaning back in her pleasure and he will remember her face as she comes for the rest of his life, even if it’s only seconds before he closes his eyes as he crests with the intensity of a tidal wave.

It takes some time for them to move again, neither of them wanting to leave the other’s embrace, both of them overwhelmed with the intensity of their joining.

For all the times Agni has felt lost and alone, she is now forever found.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, dear readers, thank you for sticking around. This pic was difficult to get around in some places, and as a fervent reader of DA fanfic I struggled a lot with unrealistic expectations I set on myself, stringing together an epic story (in my head anyway) and, after some poor planning and too much time spent in between drafts, something that I’m happy to finish, but feel like I could do better. So I am planning something new, and I’m also planning on reviving an older story idea, but I’ll have it take some time before I’m ready to publish.
> 
> Also, if you’d like to be a beta in either an Inquisition story with F!Hawke/Sebastian Vael or a modern Cullen/F!Inquisitor AU, let me know.
> 
> Thank you.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you, as always, for reading. Comments and kudos are love.


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